1 June 2012

So, you’ve finished reading Frindle by Andrew Clements. How was it?

I personally enjoy this book because I love the ingenuity and creativity of Nick Allen. Nick’s teachers and parents would declare him a troublemaker who doesn’t find much use for school, but he is one of those bright students who will do anything for a challenge, and he found one in Mrs. Granger. Mrs. Granger teaches the rules of the English language, and she runs her classroom on the strictest rules, and she expects everyone to abide by the rules – all of them! When rules are broken she serves out punishments with absolute sternness and the most piercing eyes. Every student is afraid of Mrs. Granger’s eyes. It’s almost as if she knows what mischief will occur even before the mischief maker knows himself! These aren’t the only characters in the book, and they certainly don’t tell the whole story, but Nick and Mrs. Granger are the driving purpose behind the story.

As a punishment from Mrs. Granger, Nick has to write a report on the origin of words and the dictionary, and he soon learns that words are created by people. The words we use every day, the words we shouldn’t use, and the words we should use more often, haven’t always existed. Instead, they had to be created because someone needed to communicate. So, Nick decides he’ll create his own word, frindle, and just to show Mrs. Granger that she doesn’t own the English language, he convinces his friends to substitute the word frindle for pen. Mrs. Granger is infuriated that her students show such utter disrespect for the word pen, but she can’t make them stop. Soon, she realizes that Nick has created something so big that it cannot be stopped. Nick owns this word, legally and figuratively, and it has begun to spread across the country. By the end of the book, frindle has entered into the American vernacular, and even Nick hardly feels that he can lay claim to it. When frindle is added to the dictionary, Mrs. Granger finally congratulates Nick on creating a new word.

On the surface, Mrs. Granger is the teacher that every student would be afraid to know. She is strict and maintains high expectations. Yet, she cares for her students. She requires that they follow the rules because she knows that students need boundaries in order to learn what is proper and healthy. However, she also knows that many students need to push those boundaries before they will find any purpose. At first, Mrs. Granger is fighting a battle against Nick to prove to him the importance of the rules. After a while, though, she realizes that as soon as she stops fighting, Nick will stop creating. Without an antagonist, Nick would never have created such a permanent word.

As teachers, this is our challenge. With so many students and so many regulations, how can we encourage creativity? How do we ensure that students follow the rules but still find the desire to strike out on the own? Can we, the teachers, push the boundaries in order to find our own creativity? Whatever the answers, Frindle is a book that begs every student and teacher to explore life and continue learning at every stage in life.